Biomass is the European Space Agency’s seventh Earth Explorer satellite, launched on 29 April 2025 on a Vega-C rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, to measure how much carbon is stored in the world’s forests and how it changes. It carries the first P-band synthetic aperture radar ever flown in space – a 70-centimetre wavelength that penetrates forest canopies to measure trunks and branches – unfurled through a 12-metre deployable antenna, and will map tropical, temperate and boreal forests from a 666 km Sun-synchronous orbit over five years.
Context
- Biomass was launched on 29 April 2025 aboard Vega-C from Europe’s spaceport in French Guiana; its giant antenna was deployed in May and the first radar images were released in June 2025.
- Forests store a large share of the carbon on land, but estimates of that stock are uncertain by billions of tonnes; Biomass is designed to provide the first consistent global measurement.
Key Objectives
- Quantify global forest biomass and carbon content from space.
- Build 3D models of forest structure and track biomass change over time.
- Measure carbon flows – absorption and release – in terrestrial ecosystems to improve climate models and support REDD+ carbon accounting.
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- P-band SAR: the first satellite with P-band synthetic aperture radar (435 MHz, 70 cm wavelength), long enough to pass through leaves and see trunks and large branches, where most biomass sits.
- 12-metre deployable reflector: a mesh antenna, one of the largest flown by ESA, giving the resolution needed for dense tropical and boreal forests.
- Tomography: repeated passes create 3D “slices” of forests, like a CT scan.
- Beyond forests: the radar can map subsurface geology in deserts, ice-sheet structure and terrain topography under vegetation.
- Orbit: Sun-synchronous, 666 km, dawn-dusk, for consistent illumination and stable data.
- Built by: Airbus Defence and Space in Stevenage, UK, with research institutions across Europe.
About the Earth Explorer Programme
- ESA’s research-driven series of satellites, each answering a specific scientific question about the atmosphere, biosphere, cryosphere, oceans or solid Earth.
- Earlier missions: GOCE (2009-2013, gravity field and ocean circulation), SMOS (2009, soil moisture and ocean salinity), CryoSat-2 (2010, ice thickness), Swarm (2013, magnetic field), Aeolus (2018-2023, winds) and EarthCARE (May 2024, clouds, aerosols and radiation, with Japan’s JAXA).
Why It Matters for India
- Forest carbon stocks are central to India’s climate pledge of an additional 2.5-3 billion tonnes of CO2 sink by 2030; Biomass data will help verify such estimates.
- India’s own NISAR (NASA-ISRO SAR, launched 2025) uses L-band and S-band radar for vegetation and land-change monitoring – a complementary system.
Important Facts for Examsmost asked
- Biomass: ESA’s seventh Earth Explorer; launched 29 April 2025, Vega-C, French Guiana; five-year mission.
- First P-band SAR in space (70 cm wavelength); 12-metre deployable antenna; 666 km Sun-synchronous orbit.
- Purpose: forest biomass and carbon mapping; built by Airbus (UK).
- Earlier Earth Explorers include GOCE, SMOS, CryoSat-2, Swarm, Aeolus, EarthCARE.
FAQs
Why P-band?
Shorter radar wavelengths bounce off leaves; the 70 cm P-band passes through the canopy and scatters off trunks and branches, which hold most of a forest’s carbon.
Can Biomass observe all forests?
Not all: P-band frequencies are reserved for some military radars, so the satellite cannot operate over North America and Europe, but it covers the tropics, Asia, Africa, South America and the boreal forests of Siberia.
Why is it asked in NABARD and RBI exams?
Climate science missions, carbon sinks and Earth observation are recurring topics in the environment and science sections.
